Thursday, March 8, 2012

Chinglish! and learning English

I borrowed this from Sonja! This is what we currently speak!
"Go sheza your hands." (Go wash your hands.)
"Look, a faygee" or "Con a faygee" (Look, an airplane!)
"Xie xie, Dad" (thank you, Dad) Dad, not BABBA!

Sophie's language acquisition is amazing! I decided to write down all the words she USES (says) today. I thought it was about 20, with an understanding of about 10 or more additional words or phrases that she understands, but we found out that she USES over 40 words and it's up to 50 if you include all of our names! Here is the current list:
Uh-oh
Eat
Please
More
Yes
Stop
Go
Let's go
Good job (she said this to Zack in her first days home after teaching him how to use chopsticks! Yes, we've said it to her a time or 2!!)
Good girl
Naughty
Yeah
Bye Bye
Hello
Good morning
Good night
Clean up (and the girl CAN! She knows how and does it!!)
Sorry
Excuse me
This one
All done
Sun
Moon
Star
Napkin
Cup
Spoon
Fork
Chips
Banana
Ice Cream
Yogurt
Soup
Juice
Water
Soy sauce
Hot
Cold
Teeth
Toes
Hand
Doctor
Buckle (seatbelt)
Ball
Ok
Beautiful (knows it in sign language too!)
I love you  (one of my favorites!)

I was standing in the kitchen writing this list while the kids were having smoothies. Sophie understood what we were doing and started saying words she knows!! Then she said "chocoleet" and I didn't get it. I thought it sounded like chocolate, but I had no idea she knew that word. To prove it to me, she hopped down, trotted over to the frig and pointed to the chocolate syrup that we put on our ice cream! Ok, she also knows chocolate! That's Momma's girl!!

She calls these people by name: Momma, Babba/Dad, Matt, Ryan, Josh, Jake, Zack, Katie, Emily

Sitting here listening to her reminds me that she also knows numbers 1-10! That's 10 more words!!

Funny, she doesn't say "no" yet in English!!! She DOES say "no", but using  a form of Mandarin: She says "booyow" which means "I don't want it." or something like that! And it is usually said with a wave of her hand out like a stop sign while she cries out, "booyow, booyow, booyow"!!

In addition to all these she SAYS, she can understand these:
wait
get dressed
brush teeth
wash hands
outside
bike
scooter
get shoes on
get your coat on
go get in the van
time for dinner


One night she was trying to say "napkin" and it was so far from " napkin" I thought she was telling me the Mandarin word for napkin. Thankfully someone noticed and pointed out that she was trying to say napkin! Good think she is patient with us!


She just continues to amaze us! She has taught us many Mandarin words, but let's just say the rate of my vocabulary is not keeping up with hers!

I will try to post some PICTURES again soon!

1 comment:

  1. This is so fun to hear about! Our little one was only 26 months when she came home and it looks like the next one will be about the same. I'm glad to hear that Sophie is doing so well.

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